Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 1.djvu/623

Rh toward you, Senators of the North. I am sure there is not one of you, whatever sharp discussion there may have been between us, to whom I cannot say in the presence of my God, I wish you well, and such I am sure is the feeling of the people whom I represent toward those whom you represent. * * * I carry with me no hostile remembrance. Whatever offense I have given which has not been redressed or for which satisfaction has not been demanded, I have, Senators, in this hour of our parting, to offer you my apology for any pain which in the heat of discussion I have inflicted. I go hence unincumbered by the remembrance of any injury received, and having discharged the duty of making the only reparation in my power for any injury offered, Mr. President and Senators, having made the announcement which the occasion seemed to me to require, it only remains for me to bid you a final adieu. With these fitly spoken words, uttered with the grace of manner for which the accomplished orator was distinguished, and with a tenderness in tone produced by the occasion, the Senator vacated the seat which he had honored and stepped away from a position of commanding dignity and power sufficient to gratify his ambition. It must be seen that the sacrifice was great. Before him the experiment of secession to be tried, according to his expressed belief, alone by bloody war around him, as his parting words fell from his lips, the associations of a nobly patriotic life rise up and engage his thought within him a consciousness of rectitude in present motive, and magnanimity in feeling; while a record ineffaceable by any power attested the fidelity of his past life to the general welfare of his country. The change of all conditions became peculiarly and specially great as to him, because even contrary to his wishes he was destined to become the head and front of the secession movement. His virtues would be forgotten and his name maligned through the spite and prejudice not only of the ignorant masses, but of prominent men of warped intelligence.